Russia and Western Countries Conduct Prisoner Swap, High-Profile Cyber Criminals Included in Exchange
In a landmark prisoner swap orchestrated among Russia and various Western nations, 24 detainees gained their freedom. Principal among the 8 Russian convicts who were repatriated are several renowned cybercriminals. On the other side of the swap, Russia released 16 captives, which included Evan Gershkovich, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, and Paul Whelan, a former U.S Marine.
An intriguing figure in the prisoner exchange is 40-year-old Roman Seleznev. Sentenced in 2017 to a then-record 27-year incarceration for racketeering convictions, Seleznev’s transgressions were inextricably linked to a protracted career in the theft and sale of payment card data. He forged this reputation by operating some of the busiest underground marketplaces for pilfered card information.
Seleznev, once doing business under hacker pseudonyms like “Track2”, “Bulba”, and “nCux”, is the offspring of prominent Russian parliament member Valery Seleznev, who is considered an ally of Vladimir Putin.
Prosecution from the U.S. demonstrated that for many years, Seleznev effectively evaded the arm of the law by leveraging his contacts at the Russian FSB (the successor to the Soviet KGB) and regularly modifying his hacker alter-egos.
In an unforeseen turn of events, Seleznev was seized by U.S. Secret Service agents in 2014 during his luxurious getaway in The Maldives. This South Asian island country was at the time popular among cybercriminals based in Eastern Europe, who touted it as a safe haven from U.S. law enforcement agents.
Seleznev, apart from being handed an illustrious prison sentence, was also mandated to compensate his victims with more than $50 million. This restitution amount equals the collective damage inflicted by his various carding shops, and other thefts linked to members of the cybercrime community Carder[.]su, an active Organisation that counts Seleznev as one of its principal organizers.
Vladislav Klyushin, a Muscovite aged 42 who was convicted to a nine-year sentence in U.S prisons in September 2023 for a “$93 million hack-to-trade conspiracy,” was another cyber villain freed in the prisoner swap. Klyushin and his team infiltrated companies and utilized their stolen information for illegal stock trading.
Klyushin, like Seleznev, was apprehended during his holiday abroad: The Associated Press reported that Klyushin’s capture occurred in Switzerland subsequent to his private jet landing, and moments before his group were set to embark on a helicopter to a close-by ski resort.
Klyushin owns the Russian technology company M-13, a firm that operates in contract with the Russian government. As per prosecutors, M-13 provides penetration testing and “Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) emulation”. In line with his guilty plea, Klyushin was also directed to forfeit $34 million and pay further restitution whose amount was to be determined.
According to the U.S government, four of Klyushin’s purported co-conspirators, including Ivan Ermakov, remain at large. Remarkably, Ermakov was one of the twelve Russians charged in 2018 with the hacking of crucial Democratic Party email accounts.
Among the American prisoners liberated by Russia were Evan Gershkovich (a Wall Street Journal reporter), the Russian-American editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Alsu Kurmasheva, and Paul Whelan, a former U.S Marine. These individuals had been charged with spying, with Gershkovich spending the last 16 months in a Russian prison. This international prisoner swap also led to the release of some German nationals, including German Moyzhes, who is known for assisting Russians in securing residence permits in Germany and other E.U countries.
In another turn of the prisoner swap, Germany released Vadim Krasikov, a colonel of the FSB who was serving a life sentence in Berlin on charges of murdering an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident. Note: It is imperative to correct an error in the earlier version of this report that falsely claimed Alexander Vinnik, the BTC-e co-founder, was released in the swap. This information has been corrected in this report.
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